Opportunity for improvement

By Sharon McLeay Times Contributor

The definition of the word ‘alienation’ is the state or experience of being isolated from a group or an activity, to which one should belong, or in which one should be involved.
Rumblings in rural Alberta communities indicate alienation is not just about political jargon or a rallying tool for the discussion of energy development. Westerners are feeling left out of important conversations.
At the 2019 Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) conference, Wheatland County councillors had some concerns raised considering the lack of attention paid to western rural issues.
Wheatland County responded with a proposal to prevent wider gaps occurring between east and west, and rural and urban municipalities. Their request was made through the Division Two, Rural Municipalities of Alberta (RMA), which meets again in October.
The resolution is asking for membership support to forward suggestions to FCM for better representation and content of presentations relevant to western rural municipalities for the FCM annual conferences.
In the 2018 conference, there were discussions about broadband, networking opportunities and two Alberta speakers views on economic development. Wheatland County councillors thought there should be better scheduling of the oil and pipeline discussion, and attention paid to grain and beef industry issues.
Council debated attendance at future conferences if changes were not made.
The counterpoint was made that a western voice is not heard, if that voice isn’t at the table, to speak and stand up for issues important to rural Albertans.
Wheatland County Reeve Amber Link discussed the idea with municipal representatives in a central Alberta meeting she attended.
“There was not that much support at the director level for boycott,” said Link. “There was more support to be proactive … maybe an education campaign around rural energy, as well as rural perspectives and kind of western issues.”
The resolution clearly stated two points. It must be demonstrated that rural and western Canadians do not appreciate bias against their perspectives and issues, influencing their livelihood. It also recognized the planning efforts that go into a conference of this size.They put their words into action by requesting western representatives be part of the planning committees.